


Limbus Patrum

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-15
Updated: 2011-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brooklyn, 3am.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limbus Patrum

Brooklyn, 3am.

 

And Matt was exactly where he was supposed to be.

 

He had given up long ago thinking that where he belonged was camped out on McClane’s couch. Staring up at the ceiling, but only seeing mocking elevator shafts stretching in front of his eyes into the darkness.

 

The ring in his ears still as deafening as if it had only been seconds since the gunshots.

 

Obstinate in the lie to himself that, tonight, he would sleep.

 

So Matt was here, in his place. Curled only slightly fetally on his side, head tucked into the crook of the wide shoulder. Strong pulse against his temple, ear pressed to the beat, beat, beat of that enigmatic heart.

 

Matt was pretty sure McClane used to sleep raw, but they had both made the compromise to boxers after the first three times Matt turned up in the bedroom doorway in nothing but flannel sweatpants. Peering, blind and unmoving, into the dark. Ensnared at the threshold of that inner sanctum; McClane’s musky scent strong in the air here, like a beacon.

 

Warning. Rocky landing ahead.

 

Harbour. It’s what you’re doing if you live with a criminal.

 

Three times he came, fresh from the nightmare. Shaken and subtly sick. Ears straining to pick out the slow, steady sleep-sounds from within. Only to get a gruff “just get your post-traumatic ass in here, already” and spend the rest of the night atop McClane’s cheap department store bedspread.

 

Any port in a storm.

 

Matt stared at the ceiling those first nights too. But the rhythmic breathing beside him, sure and true and deep, kept the ringing sound at bay. And he never saw an elevator shaft in this room.

 

That’s where it started. And this – this was where it led them. This dimly-lit holding pattern. This shade of gray. This limbo-space in between truth and the way things were.

 

Matt could count on McClane being more or less awake now, to pull back the sheets for him when he showed up at the bedside every night like clockwork. But that was John’s only acknowledgement of him. Wordless air of patience, while Matt got settled. Never a sign that the shivering or burrowing into his side was anything more than a purely one-sided desperate seeking of comfort. Protection. Of sleep.

 

Not outwardly.

 

Matt wasn’t sure McClane knew he had noticed. The things that happened to that stoic, inscrutable heartrate – given the right shift of Matt’s hips. Flicker of his eyelashes, or huff of humid breath against the tendon of that sinewy neck.

 

McClane was about to know, though.

 

Matt bit his lip and moved. Pressed the stiff, hot erection in his shorts to the lean bulk of McClane’s thigh, ready to take whatever he got for it. The pulse under Matt’s cheek that had been gradually increasing – stopped. Tripped, faltered. Resumed at an erratic pace that belied the off-handed grunt.

 

“Kid.” A warm weight on Matt’s hip. John’s hand. “You’re dreaming.”

 

The words weren’t exactly a question. The pressure of John’s grip wasn’t exactly a push.

 

Directionless. Pinned. Please hold.

 

Limbo.

 

“Only one way to know for sure.” Matt pressed closer. Shut his eyes against the rush of sensation and contact so brief it was almost worse than nothing.

 

Seconds ticked. Breathless.

 

And then, the hand over his hip started to roam. His own heart struck a pace so wild and untrammelled – like flight – that he might never sleep again.

 

Matt’s breath came back. Caught, went ragged and shocked. Evened and spread out and deepened, as his hands found their own paths over warm skin and hard flesh. Maybe he really was dreaming. And that would be just fine with him, as long as he didn’t stop.

 

Fine. Just fine.

 

 

FIN

 

 

 

______________________  
'Snick, September 2010

 


End file.
